Cooper Young for Clean Water

The most meaningful part of Christmas this year for me was the amazing way that God provided so that Neighborhood Church could lead our community to raise $5,000 to build a well in Peru. I have not spent as much time sharing and reflecting about this project as I hope to do.

Again this year NC participated in Advent Conspiracy. Our pastor raised the bar this year by setting a goal that seemed impossible by human standards. The past two years we have raised $500 for clean water at our Clean Water Party. This year our goal was to raise $5,000 to build a well for a specific village in Northern Peru, similar to the village in this video:


Christmas [is] changing the world from Living Water International on Vimeo.


This article in The Lampligher shared the challenged with the neighborhood. I asked some family members to donate toward our well instead of buying me a gift and I was really excited that my teaching coach donated money after I shared the challenge with her. A week before Christmas we had $5,600, surpassing our goal. Every time I think about that I get tears in my eyes. God not only met our goal, but dominated it ahead of time.

Our pastor Robert posted this on facebook Christmas Day. Adam is 5 years old:

Today Adam was updating our family on our clean water project: "And in 2 wks we raised $500,000." Should be $5000, but who's counting?

Work on the well will begin in January. Reaching this goal gives me hope for all my personal goals this year, goals for my current students, and goals that education will no longer be an injustice.